Three years after the release of Ice On The Dune, Empire Of The Sun release their third opus, Two Vines this Friday. In between tours and shows, the electro-rock Australian duo surrounded themselves with a team of talented people to create their new LP: Wendy Melvoin from Prince’s band The Revolution, Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham, and former David Bowie’s Blackstar band members, pianist Henry Hey and bassist Tim Lefebvre.

With this new collection, Empire Of The Sun are coming back to the ambiance they had created with their first album, 2009’s Walking On A Dream. An important presence of drums across the LP and a more dynamic electro-rock atmosphere transports listeners to infinity and beyond.

To record Two Vines, Empire Of The Sun decided to change their scenery to experience a more relaxed environment. “Going to Hawaii to record was the best idea,” said lead singer Luke Steele in a statement. “That was the catalyst for me. I’d spend the morning surfing, then roll in and make music into the night.”

With the opener ‘Before’, the duo smoothly brings a more ’70s/’80s vibe to the listeners’ ears, but not only that. ‘Before’ has a double ambience. On the one hand, a very repetitive digital sound, which can, despite reminding you of the intro of The 1975’s ‘The Sound’, bring you to a busy city, where digital is the key to many things. On the other hand, a summer feeling, which transports your mind to a beach, where the waves ends their races on the sand, and the wind sings in the palm trees, where nature is key.

“There was an image we talked about very early on with this record, before we wrote the title track, ‘Two Vines,’ and that was this image of a modern city overtaken by jungle, almost like mother nature taking back the planet,” said Steele’s bandmate, Nick Littlemore. “All the buildings will turn back to sand. All it will be is nature again. We wanted to make something that reflected the beauty of that, and the wisdom that plants can give us about living harmoniously on this beautiful planet.”

An image that can be seen in the album’s promotion track’s video, ‘High And Low’, where only an eye coming out from the grass can be seen. The eye is staring at the camera during the entire clip, as if to say that Mother Nature is having Her look set on us. Alongside the idea of a pulsation given by the drums, and the smooth “I want you to know that I’ll be always around”, this idea that nature is powerful and beautiful is in itself powerful and beautiful.

The rest of the LP is a sort of a multitude of love letters to a friend, a ‘First Crush’, or even Mother Nature. Although each song has a different message and musicality, their rhythms are sometimes so similar that a couple of tracks on Two Vines seem to have become one.

 With ‘Digital Life’, the duo came back to this digital, repetitive (and stressful?) sound used on ‘Before’ that reminds of the life in a city. A sort of break from the more relaxed songs that preceded it, a reminder to the life we live in the city, as opposed to the life in nature. If an album is considered a story, this song would be seen as a painful comeback to the reality, regardless of the lyrics. 

The LP ends on a very relaxed, completely different track – ‘To Her Door’.

Following the song ‘ZZZ’, and starting in a rhythm that could refer to the calm following a storm, or a soft song that could help someone to wake up, ‘To Her Door’ reminds us that “Hey, it’s the morning”. The moment spent appreciating Empire Of The Sun’s new opus is coming to an end. Once again, a painful comeback to reality, where the colourful world we were evolving in for the past hour was just a walk on a dream.

 With Two Vines, Empire Of The Sun applied the recipe of Walking On A Dream‘s worldwide success, spiced-up with techniques used on Ice On The Dune. Let’s hope for the Australian duo that it finds the same success as its predecessors, so we can dream in a more technicolour world.

Two Vines is released via Universal Music Australia.

Emilie Herman
@emiliehrrmnn